


Jeeves and the Jail Cell

by gracefultree



Category: Jeeves & Wooster, Jeeves - P. G. Wodehouse
Genre: M/M, Period-Typical Homophobia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-19
Updated: 2016-03-19
Packaged: 2018-05-26 18:30:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,742
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6250792
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gracefultree/pseuds/gracefultree
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Bertie gets a 6am phone call from the police to tell him that Jeeves has been arrested, what's a young Wooster to do?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Jeeves and the Jail Cell

It was a phone call no one wants, let alone at six in the ak emma. As I stumbled out of bed to answer the thing, it occurred to me that Jeeves should have been there first. If I recall correctly, the one and only time I woke before seven he had already been up, bathed, dressed, drinking his morning tea, and he informed me that it was his usual practice to wake before six.  


One never wants to get a call from the police.  


I rallied round, of course. We Woosters are known for rallying round when the pudding gets sticky. Or the consume hot.  


What I didn’t expect was to see Jeeves on the other side of the iron bars.  


He lay on the hard, skinny plank of a prison bench, asleep, one eye black and blue, with a scrape on his forehead and a split lip. I gasped at the sight.  


“You know this fella?” the police officer asked.  


“Um, yes. Yes. He’s my valet, Jeeves.”  


“Jeeves, what?”  


“Just Jeeves,” I said distractedly, for I was focused on Jeeves and how beat-up he looked. “What happened?”  


“Raid on a night club,” the man said. “He refused to say anything, but we found your name on some papers in his pocket.”  


“Oh, well, it’s good I’m here to bail him out then, what?”  


“You’ll have to wait until he sees the judge for that, Mr. Wooster.”  


“Really? I’ll pay whatever the fine is. He doesn’t have to go before the magistrate.”  


“Yes, he does,” the man said. He walked away, leaving me alone with my slumbering manservant.  


“Jeeves, wake up,” I called, hoping to make him stir. He groaned and shifted, rubbing his hand over his face, finding the cuts and scrapes and black eye. “Jeeves, come over here and talk to me.”  


“Sir?” he asked, his body suddenly ramrod straight. “Mr. Wooster?”  


“Why didn’t you want them to call me, old thing? You had to have known I’d have been down here faster than a tick on a dog to bail you out.”  


Jeeves turned away from me. I felt something inside me crack. It was probably my heart, for I hated seeing him this wretched. I hated having him turn his back on me.  


“All this time, I thought we were friends. I thought you trusted me,” I said, stepping forward to hold onto one of the bars. “I thought you knew you could come to me about any problem you had.”  


“Not this one, sir.” The whisper was soft. So soft I’d barely heard it. He sighed. “There’s nothing anyone could do,” he added in a louder voice.  


“Jeeves, I’ve been caught in club raids before this,” I protested. “You’ve come to get me a time or two, even.”  


“Not this kind of club,” he said with a bitter edge to his words. Watching him move, I realized that he was more beaten than I’d initially thought. Everything was stiff, as if he were in pain. He was missing his jacket and hat. His tie was loose around his neck.  


The scales fell from my eyes.  


“Only because I check to see when they’ve last been raided before I go in,” I barked. “If it’s been longer than a month, I leave. It’s simple enough.”  


Jeeves had turned around to face me, his mouth hanging open indelicately. “You, sir?”  


“What, you thought I’ve been celibate all this time?” I demanded, angry now at his assumptions. “You think I’m not smart enough to take care of myself?”  


“I — I had no idea,” he breathed, watching me with hooded eyes. Eye, really, since the one was closed on account of the bruising.  


“You weren’t meant to,” I snarled.  


“But, everything we’ve shared…”  


“Means nothing in the face of this,” I finished for him. “Now I have half a mind to leave you here to face the law, but I’ve seen what it does to people, so I’m going to get you out of all this, and I’m going to keep your name intact, but I expect better of you in the future. If you don’t know the raid schedules, I’ll give them to you.” I turned away from him. “We will never speak of this again, Jeeves, or I will ruin you,” I hissed over my shoulder.  


I found the officer who’d brought me to Jeeves. Fifty pounds bought his silence and Jeeves’s freedom, as well as the burning of any incriminating papers, which we witnessed, of course. He wasn’t the most intelligent of officers, and the idea of extorting money from me to protect my own name never occurred to him. Jeeves and I took a silent cab home.  


“Get yourself cleaned up,” I said as we entered, in no mood to deal with him. “I got a telegram from Angela last night. We leave for Brinkley as soon as you can pack us.”  


I ran my own bath. I dressed myself. By the time I’d finished, he was back in his usual valeting togs and shimmering about the bedroom packing silently but stiffly. I left him to it and mixed myself a drink. It hadn’t occurred to me that I’d not had breakfast.  


The drive in the two-seater was as silent as the packing and cab ride had been. I had nothing to say that wasn’t angry or mean-spirited, and it seemed like neither did he. Of course, I could tell that he was bursting with questions, and apologies, and any other number of things, but the topic was off limits.  


“You look a fright, Bertie, dear,” Aunt Dahlia said when I greeted her in her study.  


“Well, it’s been a long day, darling aunt,” I answered, kissing her cheek.  


“A long day? It’s barely past one o’clock. You can’t have been up for more than the few hours it took to drive here.”  


“Jeeves was arrested at a Molly House last night,” I blurted. “I got the call around six this morning.”  


“ _Jeeves_ was?”  


“Jeeves was.”  


“I didn’t know they were still called that,” she said.  


“Molly House, pansy club, it’s all the same thing.”  


She sat down heavily in her chair. “Oh, my.”  


I walked over to the sideboard and poured a drink for each of us.  


“What did you do?” she asked after a minute. “It’s clear you didn’t fire him, though that shiner of his will cause speculation.”  


“Me? Fire Jeeves? Ha! I’d rather cut off my right leg.”  


“Oh, Bertie, do sit down and stop pacing. What did you tell him? What are you going to do?”  


“I told him I’d give him the schedule to avoid the raids and to never speak of it again on pain of a ruined life.”  


“You didn’t?”  


“I bally well did!”  


“But you’re in love with him!”  


“It doesn’t matter how much I love the blighter!” I shouted. I turned to face the window, not willing to look at her. “If he’s stupid enough to get caught in one of those clubs, there’s no way it would work between us.”  


“Say it again, Bertie,” she said.  


“What?”  


“Say it again, what you just said.”  


“It doesn’t matter how much I love him if he’s going to get into that kind of trouble—“  


“You love me, sir?” Jeeves asked from the door he’d just opened. He’d clearly heard what I’d said and wanted to hear it again. And, somehow, Aunt Dahlia had arranged the whole thing. I whirled in place.  


“Jeeves?”  


“You love me?” he asked again, dropping the sir.  


“He has for _years,_ Jeeves,” Aunt Dahlia said, patting his arm as she sailed from the room. “I’ll see that you’re not disturbed.”  


We stared at each other awkwardly for a minute. I turned away again, looking with unseeing eyes out to the grounds.  


“I —“  


I tried to cut him off with the Wooster Glare. For once in our association, it worked. “Sit!” I ordered, pointing. He sat. I started pacing again. “What I can’t understand, Jeeves, is how you got caught.”  


He cleared his throat. “There was a gentleman of your acquaintance present, sir,” he began. “When the police came, I made sure he was able to leave.”  


“At the cost of yourself and your reputation?”  


“Yes, sir.”  


“Who?” I demanded before he could continue.  


“It wouldn’t be proper —“  


“ _Who_ , dammit?”  


Jeeves quailed at my fire. “Mr. Winship, sir.”  


I threw up my hands. “You risked yourself for Ginger? For _Ginger?_ The man’s as queer as they come!”  


“He informed me that it was his first —“  


“Jeeves! Jeeves, you should be smarter than this!”  


“I felt it was my duty to —“  


“Your _duty_ is to keep out of trouble if you go to one of those places!” I roared. “Your duty is to keep me and my name out of those places! As my employee, you pull me into the thick of it! Be glad that officer was open to such a small bribe and too stupid to want more. I’m taking it out of your pay,” I added, feeling vindictive.  


“Very good, sir,” he said in the most subservient voice I’d ever heard from him. I turned to look at him, at the set of his shoulders and the defeat in his demeanor.  


“You’re not even protesting?”  


“I failed you, sir. It would be your right to fire me for such a —“  


“I’m not a hypocrite,” I snapped. “I’m not going to fire you.”  


We ruminated on this for a few minutes. I continued pacing. Every so often I would look at him. He didn’t move a muscle the entire time, though he looked as if he wished to say something.  


“What is it?” I finally asked.  


“Mrs. Travers knows —“  


“She’s known since I was 18. A man has to be able to confide in _someone.”_  


“But your aunt!”  


“Have you confided in anyone?”  


“No.”  


“No one? Not a single person?”  


“No one outside the usual anonymous encounters,” he said, and for the first time in our association, there was color in his cheeks.  


I threw myself into an armchair and put my head in my hands. “Oh, Jeeves…”  


“Sir?”  


“If we’d only known,” I murmured.  


“Sir?”  


“Dash it all!” I lowered my hands and looked directly at him. “She’s right, you know. It’s been years.”  


Silence stretched again. Jeeves took a deep breath in preparation for speech, but the ideas got lost somewhere in transit. He tried again.  


“I’ve kept myself to anonymous encounters,” he said. “Physical gratification to the exclusion of all else.” He paused. “It felt safer that way.”  


“There’s something to be said for having a lover,” I commented wryly. “Someone you know and trust. There’s comfort in it, a level of caring not present in more casual situations.”  


“You’ve had a lover?” he asked, sitting up straighter. There was even a bit of jealousy in his voice.  


“Several, actually, if you must know,” I answered, though part of me felt that it wasn’t his business. I stood again and walked to the sideboard to pour myself a brandy.  


“Do you have one now?” he wanted to know, and the jealousy was more pronounced.  


“No.”  


“Why —“  


“Because I’m in love with you, dash it all!” I exclaimed. “Yes, I’ve gone out, and done some things, a man has needs after all, but it didn’t feel proper to find a lover when I harbored such feelings for you.”  


He seemed to think about this for a moment, and I took the opportunity to pour a drink and swallow it.  


“Do you have feelings for me?” I asked bluntly. He looked pointedly at the brandy and I sighed, pouring him a drink and handing it over. I waited while he sipped. I watched the expressions on his face change. There are people who say he has a face of stone, with no expression whatsoever on it, but I would disagree. In that moment, I could read him like a b.  


“Yes,” he replied. He carefully set the glass down and looked away from me. “Yes, I have feelings for you. I do more, I _want_ to do more for you than for any previous master. My only desire is to see you smiling. I want to spend every waking moment in your presence. I linger when you are in the bath, on the chance that I might catch a glimpse of your bare skin.” He took a deep breath and continued, softer, more embarrassed. “I have stood in your bedroom some mornings, watching you sleep, memorizing your every feature. I have stood outside your door at night, listening to your every move.”  


He closed his eyes and leaned his forehead on his clasped hands.  


“It shames me to admit this, but I have pleasured myself to the sound of you doing the same, and I have imagined that I was in that room with you, in your bed, touching you, kissing you, filling you, making love to you… I have begged you, in my dreams, to take me in your mouth. I have spent hours imagining the ways we could pleasure each other. I have…” He raised his head, an idea suddenly striking him. “My God, when did I fall in love with you?” he demanded.  


Brandy spilled over the edge of my glass, across my fingers, and started dripping to the carpet. I’d forgotten in my attention to his voice and story that I had been pouring another drink. This image of him standing outside my door, biting his fist to keep silent, tugging at himself, desperate for release and wishing he were in my bed…  


I dropped the decanter.  


Neither of us noticed it shattering, because we were in each other’s arms, kissing.  


“Oh Jeeves — _kiss_ — I’ve got to — _kiss_ — take you to bed — _kiss, kiss_ — as soon as — _kiss_ — we get home!”  


“I can — _kiss_ — have us packed — _kiss_ —“  


“We have to deal with the — _kiss_ — Angela and Tuppy — _kiss, kiss_ — problem — _kiss, kiss_ — first.”  


“I’ll — _kiss_ — come to you — _kiss_ — tonight,” he offered. “Mr. Seppings wouldn’t — _kiss_ — see anything — _kiss, kiss_ — amiss — _kiss_ — in me bringing you — _kiss, kiss_ — something from the — _kiss_ — kitchens.”  


“After what you just said — _kiss, kiss, kiss_ — our first time — _kiss_ — has got to be in — _kiss, kiss_ — my bed!”  


“Then I will — _kiss_ — find a solution — _kiss_ — to their — _kiss, kiss_ — difficulty — _kiss_ — as soon as — _kiss, kiss_ — I can.”  


We were pressed so closely together that there was no mistaking our need. He grabbed my ass and tried to pull me even closer. I molded myself against him. He fumbled with my flies, and soon I was gasping into his mouth as he stroked me with a sure, steady hand.  


“Jeeves! We can’t do this here!” I protested, even as my body responded to his ministrations.  


“Please let me do this for you,” he begged. “Please. I’ve dreamed of it for so long.”  


I grabbed his wrist, but softened the blow with another kiss. “Jeeves,” I hissed. “We may have Aunt Dahlia’s blessing, but there are windows! We’ve been too lax as it is.” I pulled away from him and righted my clothing.  


He opened his mouth to respond, but closed it. “I defer to your wisdom in this, sir,” he responded in a frightfully supercilious tone, taking a step back.  


I glared at him, annoyed. “Don’t take that tone with me, Jeeves. We’re going to my room, and we’re doing it now. We can finish there.”  


He seemed to deflate and inflate at the same time. “Now, sir?”  


“I changed my mind. I don’t feel like waiting.”  


“I’ll — I’ll go ahead and prepare,” he suggested. “If that —“  


“Yes, please do. I’ll be there soon.”  


I waited five minutes after he left to step out of the room. Aunt Dahlia met me on the main stairs.  


“Well?” she asked. “How did that ‘project’ of yours go?”  


I gave her the most blinding Wooster grin. “Don’t expect me for tea,” I informed her.  


“That good?”  


“Assuredly, Aged A. Jeeves will make sure I’m presentable for dinner, so don’t worry on that account.”  


“You? Miss one of Anatole’s dinners? Heaven forbid! Sometimes I think that’s the only reason you come down here these days.”  


“That and the romantic atmosphere,” I replied cheekily. I gave her a proper nephewy kiss and dashed up the stairs, my excitement making me skip down the hall towards my room and Jeeves. I might have even been singing.


End file.
